A cautionary tale - Be a good scout and "be prepared"

[haylau]

Because we started selling on Ebay then to our own website we have PayPal - and they are (were) our only payment processor. 

They have switched us off!

No warning, no discussion, just an email this morning saying they did not want to work with us any more. Apparantly we are too risky. Obviously we are not risky at all, we sell nuts and bolts. We have never had a claim against us and keep over £20000 in the account and a monthly turnover of around £30000

I am of course trying to appeal, but it is difficult to appeal when they have not told us why we are too risky and there is no real appeal process and we are not allowed to talk directly to the reiew team. Only standard support are allowed to send them a message andthe review team "might" respond. But probably not

I actually think this is a PayPal website glitch. They asked us to apply for their new debit card which we did and they asked for some documents to upload which we can't because everytime we try their site crashes (multiple browsers, multiple computers)

So that is it. With no prior warning we are stuck with over £20000 in the account that is on hold for 180 days.

We have to effectively close our £5000 per month ebay account as you cannot sell on Ebay unless you offer PayPal

Our website also naturally takes a hit. Luckily a very quick review of thirtybees modules pointed me to Stripe and that is now installed and up and running. So we do have some consolation (actually liking the look of stripe anyway and will probably keep that even if payPal come back to us. And the Thirtybess module is great

So really just wanted to say a couple of things

1) Sorry for the grumbling but I am well and truly pi**ed off after a very trying day

2) Thanks for a great Stripe module

3) To advice you all to "Be Prepared". Make sure you all have a fall back plan should your payment processor decide to put you under suspension for no reason

 

[Signut]

I feel your pain.

However, if it is any consolation for you, we successfully changed from Paypal to Stripe last year, and continue to be very pleased with the whole Stripe experience.

That said, we operate UK and single currency only.

Good luck in getting a satisfactory resolution from Paypal.

 

 

[haylau]

3 hours ago, Signut said:

I feel your pain.

 However, if it is any consolation for you, we successfully changed from Paypal to Stripe last year, and continue to be very pleased with the whole Stripe experience.

That said, we operate UK and single currency only.

Good luck in getting a satisfactory resolution from Paypal.

 

 

We are in the process off working with Stripe. Looks good. Just a shame we are having to say goodbye to £4000 a month turnover in Ebay!

[jnsgioia]

12 hours ago, haylau said:

We are in the process off working with Stripe. Looks good. Just a shame we are having to say goodbye to £4000 a month turnover in Ebay!

At least here in the US eBay is in the process of rolling out their own payment provider (Managed Payments) and PayPal will be an option not a requirement.  Maybe that could be an option for your eBay store in the near future.

[dynambee]

I'm really sorry to hear this happened to you. PayPal can be very arbitrary sometimes and it's really hard to see how they come to some conclusions. You could try reaching out to them on social media (Twitter in particular) if you don't make any progress through their customer support.

You might want to proactively reach out to Stripe and let them know your expected sales volumes and talk to them about your business. You're doing enough sales volume that you are likely to pop up on their radar as a new customer and being proactive about it will be better than reactive.

[Purity]

13 hours ago, jnsgioia said:

At least here in the US eBay is in the process of rolling out their own payment provider (Managed Payments) and PayPal will be an option not a requirement.  Maybe that could be an option for your eBay store in the near future.

He will likely be able to eventually use it, but according to multiple service reps I've talked to, it's going to be a while before they roll it out to foreign markets such as the UK.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Purity

[shoptechmedia]

On 7/12/2019 at 5:33 AM, haylau said:

Because we started selling on Ebay then to our own website we have PayPal - and they are (were) our only payment processor. 

They have switched us off!

No warning, no discussion, just an email this morning saying they did not want to work with us any more. Apparantly we are too risky. Obviously we are not risky at all, we sell nuts and bolts. We have never had a claim against us and keep over £20000 in the account and a monthly turnover of around £30000

I am of course trying to appeal, but it is difficult to appeal when they have not told us why we are too risky and there is no real appeal process and we are not allowed to talk directly to the reiew team. Only standard support are allowed to send them a message andthe review team "might" respond. But probably not

I actually think this is a PayPal website glitch. They asked us to apply for their new debit card which we did and they asked for some documents to upload which we can't because everytime we try their site crashes (multiple browsers, multiple computers)

So that is it. With no prior warning we are stuck with over £20000 in the account that is on hold for 180 days.

We have to effectively close our £5000 per month ebay account as you cannot sell on Ebay unless you offer PayPal

Our website also naturally takes a hit. Luckily a very quick review of thirtybees modules pointed me to Stripe and that is now installed and up and running. So we do have some consolation (actually liking the look of stripe anyway and will probably keep that even if payPal come back to us. And the Thirtybess module is great

So really just wanted to say a couple of things

1) Sorry for the grumbling but I am well and truly pi**ed off after a very trying day

2) Thanks for a great Stripe module

3) To advice you all to "Be Prepared". Make sure you all have a fall back plan should your payment processor decide to put you under suspension for no reason

 

I have had same experience with paypal freezing my account and asking for documentations and proof on their website that crashes everytime i do it.. anyway, i have heard sometime ago that it usually freezes an account whenever your PayPal balance reaches certain thresholds, perhaps that is one of the reason your account is frozen, $10k i think was it. Mine was a little lower than that.